


Seder

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [90]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Steve Rogers, Jewish Tony Stark, Jewish Wanda Maximoff, Passover, Seder, writer is non Jewish, written for Jewish fanworks day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 19:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7654081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony holds a Seder every year, determined to keep some connection to his Jewish heritage. Some years, he makes due celebrating alone. This year, Steve stumbles across him preparing and tells Tony the truth: that he, too, is Jewish, even if the world has been trying to quash that fact for more than half a century.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seder

**Author's Note:**

> This is another piece I'm moving from Tumblr.
> 
> This is about a Seder and Passover. Tony, Steve, Bucky, and Wanda are Jewish, and all have various relations to their Jewish identity. All characters listed (including Rhodey, Bruce, and Vision) join Tony in a Seder. I am non-Jewish, although this was prompted and looked over by a Jewish follower, please let me know if anything is wrong to you.

Tony gets ready in the days leading up. He buys ingredients and supplies, and then does the big lead-up ceremony he does every year.

He goes to the storage box he keeps in his workshop, the one that moves residence to residence with him, the one he fished out of the wreckage of his Malibu mansion just as assuredly as he fished out DUM-E, and pulls out the carefully wrapped Seder plate.

It’s his great-grandmother’s, he knows that much. He knows it came over from Europe. He doesn’t know any more than that, wishes he did, but his Dad was older when Tony was born and there were no grandparents to speak of, and Howard had been actively trying to shed his history for decades. It makes Tony cold inside, even if he’s not one for sentimentality.

He’d have to make fun of himself if he saw himself with the Seder plate any other time of year. It’s an antique, and Tony Stark is not a sentimental man. Nevertheless, he dusts it off carefully and makes sure it’s at its shining best before laying it out.

Rhodey’s done Seders with Tony before. They started off as his little rebellion against Howard, because if Howard wanted them not to be Jewish, then Tony was going to cling to whatever pieces he could get his hands on. But then they evolved. Tony’s not Jewish enough for some, but he is Jewish. And Seder is important to him.

Rhodey was there while Tony figured it out at MIT and he was there when he could be later. Pepper spent Passover with him only twice.

This year, Tony figures he’ll call Rhodey later, see if he wants to come, but he might be spending it alone, which certainly isn’t ideal, but Tony thinks it could work. He likes the ritual of the event, the connection it gives him, the long line of unbroken history. Even if he’s answering his own questions, he can still feel that line, tenuous as it may be to him some days.

“Hey, Tony, what’s that I–” Steve cuts himself off when Tony whirls on him.

“Don’t you know I have a heart condition,” he demands. “And you have your own apartment.”

“Is that…are you having a Seder?” Steve asks.

Tony blinks. “How do you know what a Seder is?” He asks.

Steve snorts. “Tony, I’m Jewish.”

Tony double-takes. “No, you’re not.”

“Pretty sure I know what I am,” Steve says, bristling slightly.

“Pretty sure we would know,” Tony counters.

“Right. Because history is so kind to us,” Steve says waspishly. “Because the forties would let a Jewish man be…be Captain America.”

Tony thinks his mouth must be hanging open. “You mean…You’re Jewish. Actually Jewish. And all this time…you know how much that would have meant to me, to know that, as a kid?”

Steve frowns. “Howard must’ve known. I didn’t _hide_ it. I didn’t when I was a skinny little twig, definitely didn’t when I could actually defend myself. History changed me, not me. Everyone knew.”

“Of course he did,” Tony mutters, but the decides that today is a day for celebrating and he doesn’t need to dredge that up at this particular moment. “Would you…like to join me?”

“Of course!” Steve says brightly, the way he does whenever Tony gets something right about inviting him places and offering him things. He gets the faraway look he gets sometimes, lost in the past. “Bucky and I used to celebrate, you know. Back home, with his parents. In our tiny little apartment, one year. And then…in the rain. There was this barn, and we’d all hunkered down, but the roof was leaking and somehow Bucky stole a newspaper, figured out the date. We had nothing, but we still tried.” He laughs a bit. “We didn’t make it very long.”

“Does he want to join us?” Tony asks.

“I think everyone’d like to join us,” Steve says. “Can I ask?”

“Go for it,” Tony says, although he’s privately sure at least most of them will back out.

Thirty minutes later, Tony has the table set, all the cushions he can find out, and a full table. Wanda looks around in delight.

“It has been so long…” She murmurs, eyeing the arrangement.

Tony does a quick headcount. “Does Vision or Wanda count as the youngest?” He wonders allowed.

Bucky frowns. “She’s a kid still.”

“Vision’s only a few years old. Technically. If being an AI doesn’t count. Because I’m pretty sure I perfected AI before Wanda was born.”

Wanda smiles. “I always asked, at home,” she says. “I was the youngest there. It is Vision’s turn.”

Steve makes a little noise. “We always did it, the oldest person leads the Seder. So…who’s that?”

“Well, I’m older than you, pal,” Bucky shoots.

“Yeah, but are we ninety-nine and ninety-eight, or thirty and thirty-one?” Steve shoots back.

“Well most of us have you beat there,” Bruce points out. “I think that makes it…Rhodey?”

Rhodey raises his hands. “I’m going to pass to someone actually capable of this. Someone who knows this.”

“Tony,” Steve says with surety.

So Tony closes his eyes for a moment, because he’s never done this with any substantial audience before. He opens his eyes, and Rhodey smiles at him. Then Steve. Then Bucky, and Wanda, and everyone else.

So Tony begins. And it’s mostly okay, even if he and Steve and Bucky and Wanda argue a few times about how things are done, interrupting Tony and each other to figure it out. Even if Vision stumbles through the Four Questions, and Tony is pretty sure that he rushes through some parts, tripping over his own words and actions, but no one looks unsatisfied and he’s pretty sure he’s done everything close enough to correct to pass.

“Thank you,” Steve says when it’s over, when they’re through the Nirtzah and everyone is moving around again. “It’s nice. It’s like home, isn’t it?”

“You’re telling me my little attempt here reminds you of Seders in the thirties?” Tony asks incredulously.

“No, it’s different,” Steve agrees. “But parts are the same. The feelings are the same. It still feels like coming home, like family and acceptance and belonging.” He gestures. “Look at Bucky, look at Wanda. Look at everyone else, while you’re at it. Look how happy everyone is.”

“Dad wasn’t Jewish,” Tony blurts. “He didn’t want to be, because people aren’t good to Jewish businesses, even when Jewish businesses changed the world. And I wasn’t allowed to be either. But I wanted to. I found my great-grandmother’s Seder plate, stored away in some fit of sentimentality, but there was no one left to ask. I taught myself Seder and I couldn’t ask anyone the Questions. It was never taught to me. I never knew about Seders past in my family, about who was with great-grandma or how many Seders that plate’s seen. And even then, with nothing behind it…it’s still always felt like home.”

Steve’s smiling like Tony just bought him a car. Wider, probably, knowing Steve. “It’s past, it’s family. And it means a next year, too. Next year like this, and then another, and then another.”

“Family,” Tony repeats, looking around the room.

Steve elbows him gently. “Hey, look at this family. Brought together by what you started tonight. Let’s be Jewish, let’s be happy, be proud of what this gives us. Them. Us.”

Tony smiles. “Tell me more,” he says softly, watching the room. “About Seders when you were younger.”


End file.
